stuartw2112
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
It's as if someone asked whether socialism were possible and we were to reply that fish have been around for millions of years. Vin's point, even if true (has logic changed over the past few thousand years?), is irrelevant to the question.
Contempt for reforms is anarchist, not socialist:http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1908/reforms.htm
What is understood by "socialism" is also historically and culturally relative, as is its valuation. Why is this relevant to the argument?
You say "finally" but we're barely a year old! For me, and I'm not alone, we're moving too quickly. But no doubt there's a lot to be said for momentum and striking while the iron's hot.
The *case* for socialism is based on morality and logic, and concerns the long-term survival prospects of our species. But socialism itself is not the case for it. Socialism, as Marx put it, is "the real movement that abolishes the present state of things". So once we've heard the case for socialism and accepted it, it's what we *do* that should most concern us.
What would Jesus do? Whip a banker…By the way, Adam, as you asked, Left Unity will after all be standing local election candidates in Norwich, Exeter, Barnet and Wigan. So either I was right – LU's election policy has been interpreted in a far looser way than I would have – or alternatively I have vastly underestimated what's going on in these places. Not that I'm particularly against it. LU seems to have a lot of momentum behind it, so got to be worth a stab. Although no doubt the vote will, as you predict, be derisory, so you'll get to be right about that!Cheers
Hi again Alan,Actually yes of course socialists do bring out the broader implications of saving the NHS – that the NHS works on broadly socialist principles (to each according to need), that it should continue to do so, that if it's good enough for the NHS, why not for everything else? Etc.I've a busy few days and then a holiday so I'll leave it there. Perhaps we can resurrect our discussion after Easter? Not that I'm comparing myself to Jesus or anything…Cheers
That's a good point well made Alan, except I'm not a representative of reformism (I just use that language because everyone here keeps insisting on it), nor do things work like that. It's not that I have in front of me a choice of struggling for reforms, or pursuing a stepping stone strategy, or alternatively pursuing a revolutionary one. What I actually have in front of me is far more boring than that, and I makes my choices, as you do. At the moment, I'm choosing to jibber-jabber on an SPGB forum, mainly for fun. I have spent the past year in groups doing their best to oppose the privatisation of the NHS and to build a new party of the left. The implication seems to be that I'd be far better employed politically if I gave all that up and instead… what? Handed out SPGB leaflets? I could be convinced, I would.As for Annares, yes, it was set on a barren world precisely so that the problems of socialism couldn't be waved away with a magic wand called "abundance", but rather explored. Rather brilliantly in my view, but maybe my reading of this novel is as different from yours as is my reading of history!
Since I keep being told about the "lessons of history", I'd be interested where I could read some history that backs up your argument. Where and when did a petering out of efforts to achieve reform, or a downturn in the class struggle, lead to a massive increase in membership of revolutionary parties, or to actual revolutions?
Imagine someone reading Ursula Le Guin's Dispossessed, and saying, well, this anarchist society solved some of its problems, why didn't it just "go the whole way" and solve all of them? If only it were that simple Alan. If only it were possible!
PS I believe what we need are steppings stones to socialism, a politics of transition, something like this:http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2013/07/the-transition-to-socialism.html
Hi Robin,I agree with the first part of your post. We can only make a small difference anyway, but those small differences matter. We do what we can. Where we disagree is in what you claim I know really in my heart of hearts. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I know no such thing! Of course it is possible to operate a capitalist society in better or worse ways. America and Britain, for example, are run in ways that are far more harmful to working-class interests than Sweden or Norway. I prefer to live in Britain than North Korea. And so on. There are working-class interests at stake in how capitalism is run. Who wins elections matters. All these things seem to me pretty obvious.You say that the socialists in LU don't have a vision of society that exends beyond capitalism. But this is just silly. Tony Benn's vision of socialist society is still socialist, regardless of whether or not you share the details of that vision. You, like many SPGBers, talk about your own vision of socialism as if it's some kind of precious secret no one else knows about. But it is fairly common knowledge. William Morris's News from Nowhere is considered a classic inside socialist circles and outside of them. Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed is well known by every one who thinks about these kind of things. Everyone's read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and appreciates "The Money Trick". They just differ in the lessons they draw from these books.In short, I do not, not even in my heart of hearts!, share your analysis of what is or is not "inevitable". Nor do I share your estimation of what is or is not possible or probable. It is at least conceivable, for example, that non-market socialism is not actually possible, for the reasons Hayek and Mises give. Yes, I've read your replies to the arguments, and very good they are too, but the case remains a strong one. Either the arguments are strong ones, or former SPGB members such as David Ramsay Steel and Dan Greewood are dupes and fools and idiots. The former seems more likely to me. Like most people, I'm not quite convinced either way, and so am happy to keep an open mind while looking for ways forward, ways to make things a bit better in the here and now, experimenting as we can with ways of living and being.A common argument on this thread is that we shouldn't divert our energies into "reformism" when we could instead be preaching socialism. But why is it a choice we have to make? I'm perfectly capable of re-reading News from Nowhere and having an argument about it while also doing all we can to save the local hospital. And if it proves possible at some future date to elect a left government commited to renationalising the railways, for example, then I'm all in favour of that too. It would also be good for the SPGB – it would create a constituency of people it could have meaningful conversations with. At the moment, it is, like the rest of us, whistling in the wind.Hope that answers your questions, thanks for asking them!Stuart
